The Sisyphean Complexity Of The Rohingya Crisis

The Rohingyas, an ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar, have been subjected to violence, oppression, and xenophobia through draconian state law and systematic eviction campaigns for ages. Nearly 1 million Rohingyas took refuge in Bangladesh in the face of genocide. It seems like the Rohingya refugee crisis is similar to the endless and futile crisis that Sisyphus, a Greek Mythological king, faced as a punishment for continuously rolling a rock up a hill and falling. This group of people, who lived in the Arakan of Burma, continuously faced displacement throughout history and yet are not citizens of any nation. Their history, identity and ethnicity have often been used to serve narrow political interests. Both Myanmar and the neighbouring country Bangladesh used perplexing and unrealistic frameworks and narratives that continuously made the situation unresolvable and Sisyphean. The securitisation of the Rohingyas both in their native land and the host country made them stateless and dehumanised. Defective narratives of history, identity, and social actions caused such a grave situation. This article tries to shift a paradigm for the readers to look into the crisis while being aware of the defective and flawed narratives created by political agents for narrow political self-interest.